“Things continue to move, but they move slowly,” said former Mayor Phil Hardberger, a board member of the Bexar County Performing Arts Center Foundation, and who is leading the search effort.

There are five possible locations for the 600-space garage, Hardberger said, all of which are located near the future performing arts complex, Auditorium Circle and Jefferson Street.

They are: the Radius Center, 106 Auditorium Circle; property owned by the First Baptist Church; a whole block to the north of the Southwest School of Art; a surface lot adjacent to the St. Anthony Hotel; present parking belonging to St. Marks Episcopal Church.

“None have been closed on, though,” Hardberger said, “so the bidding and the negotiations are underway. It’s not clear ultimately who it will go to. There are different situations, and the path to actually making a deal with one has not been clear enough to make a decision.

“That doesn’t mean we’re sitting on it. There are meetings and conversation going on every few days.”

Logically, the parking garage will have to be completed in time for the opening of the Tobin center, currently slated for September 2014.

Constructing the new garage will take one year, Hardberger said.

“The clock is ticking,” he said, adding that he hopes to have a deal in place by the end of February.

Soon, Hardberger said, city and county officials will have to be folded into the conversation to talk cost.

The $203 million Tobin Center price tag does not include a parking garage, which figures to come in around $10-$15 million.

“There are ongoing discussions on how much the city will be involved in the financial sense as well as the county,” he said. “The intention was that the two governmental entities would assist the Tobin in the parking. It has not been clearly defined how much will they assist, and who will take the heavy load.”

Depending on which property ends up being chosen, the current property owner may want to share the garage with the Tobin.

The Southwest School of Art, three blocks west of the Tobin, is in need of additional parking, as it prepares to introduce a degree program in 2014.

The local Lynd Co. owns the St. Anthony Hotel, a block south of the Tobin, and the adjacent lot that’s being considered for the garage. There could be a need for parking, depending on how the refurbishing of the historic hotel goes.

It’s unclear how much of the parking will be available to the public at large.

“(The property owners) are trying to fulfill some of their own needs, and work with us on fulfilling ours,” Hardberger said.